I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Total_Cap_8129. She posted in AmItheAsshole
I added paragraph breaks for readability.

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. Latest update is 7 days old per the rules of this sub.

Mood Spoiler: sad but with good boundaries
Original Post: May 21, 2024
This is my first reddit post, throwaway. Also Englisch is not my first language.
My (53F) mother passed away 10 years ago and I inherited a few select items of jewellery from her. Those are things she cherished and wore often. I have been wearing her watch for the past 10 years, my sister (50F) holds a golden bracelet that she loves and there are three items left that me and my sister have been planning to give to my three daughters (20/18/18) to commemorate 10 years since her passing. They always knew this and were close to their gradma. There is also no quarrel about who gets what.
Enter my brother (48m) and his fiancée (38f) of two years. My brother is demanding one of the pieces for his future wife to wear. He claims we never involved him in any discussion as to what should happen to the pieces and we can’t just claim those to ourselves just because we are women. He says it’s very common for heirloom jewellery to be given to the daughter-in-law and he and his fiancée even cited Meghan Marke and Kate Middleton as examples.
Legally there is no case to be made, my mother left those items to me. I have politly declined their request explaining that I can’t let one of my daughters go without and that they were very close to their grandma while his fiancée did not know her. His fiancée is apparently distraught and claims we don’t see her as family. My father wants me to keep the items and give one to my brother so that all of my mom’s kids eventually get one item and I can do as I see fit with the rest. My sister kindly has offered up her bracelet.
I am torn. I don’t t want to antoganoize my brother and my sister-in law but I find my three daughters’ claim so much more valid. They have been looking forward to this for years. And I don’t want my sister to sacrifice her bracelet. If there were more pieces I would not hesitate to give something to her. It’s not a matter of money. I have offered other things out of my mom’s estate, they feel it’s not the same.
I am also taking into account that my brother was married to his first wife 10 years ago and despite having been close to my mother she got no jewellery either but was left two of my mothers’s watercolor drawings. I feel like my mother left those pieces to me with the intention of eventually passing them on to her granddaughters. Would she have subscribed to the „each child or each daughter plus daughter-in-law has to get a piece of jewellery“ logic she would have left something to my brother or his then-wife in the first place.
My daughters told me the would accept any decision I make but I feel it would be highly unfair to burden them with any involvement in the decision making. The choice is mine to make and I have to live with the consequences. According to my father they are debating to uninvite me from the wedding over this. I stand by my decision but It’s hard.. I was always on good terms with my brother and cordial with his fiancée.. so AITA?
Relevant Comments (OOP had over 100, so this is very narrowed down):
Commenter: OP, she doesn't want to feel closer to her new family, she wants to know that she can push your brother to get her what she wants, even at the expense of his relationship with all of you. It's a game she is playing now, before they get married, so she knows exactly how far she can push you all and what she can get her greedy hands on with a temper tantrum and some threats to exclude you all.
Tell your brother the legacy he received is two watercolor paintings his ex wife has, and he's welcome to chase her down for that if he feels so strongly about it. But your jewelry was a gift your grandmother gave to you, and it is staying with you until you give it to your daughters.
Friend, if you cave to your brother and SIL on this, you'll be handing shit over as long as their marriage lasts. NTA.

OOP: Wow.. thanks for the clarity and direct words. I am starting to feel I was in denial about how bad this really is.
It’s worth mentioning that my brother obviously received his own inheritance as well.
(to another commenter): Also he got a sizable inheritance back then and his wife got two original artworks.. those jewelry pieces are worth approximately $1000 each while my mother’s original artworks are valued $1000-$3000 (she was an illustrator) so the issue is really not me sitting on a $50,000 diamond ring while they received two worthless sketches.

Commenter: Your dad presumably still had items from his wife? He can give one of his treasures to her. You and your sister and your three daughters got one item each. Not up for renegotiation.

OOP: We already offered but she claims it must be jewelry so she can wear it on her wedding day.

Commenter: Since the brother and fiancee seem to want to make the decision, ask them which granddaughter they feel deserves to be deprived of her grandmother's memento, AND how they intend to compensate said daughter for her exclusion from grandmotherly keepsakes. Tell them you cannot in good conscience hand anything over to the fiancee unless they can give a reasonable answer to these questions.

OOP: My husband actually asked them that and their answer was they believe that the twins should share.. which is obviously not going to happen as long as I am here to prevent it.

Commenter: How does the SIL even know about the jewelry?

OOP: I planned to give it to my girls at a family dinner commemorating our mother’s birthday next month and gave everyone a heads up. That’s how she got to know.

Commenter: You have 3 daughters. Your mother left you 3 items. It's pretty self-explanatory. Your mother didn't have to spell it it out for you. She just left them with you for safekeeping. If that wasn't her intention, she would have given them to your dad. Plus your daughters had a personal relationship with your mom (THEIR grandmother).
You got the watch. Your sis got the bracelet. Your daughters get the other 3.

OOP: Thanks.. I feel exactly the same way. I can’t for the life of me see where my brother claims we should have involved him in any discussion concerning who gets what because in my view it’s absolutely clear who gets what. And since she left those things to me, it’s up to me to make the decision. She could’ve left them to anybody else, but she didn’t. What else am I going to do with three pieces when I have three daughters?

Commenter: Tell your brother to stick it. These are for your daughters / her bloodline. This is so entitled and ridiculous.

OOP: I actually don’t care so much about the bloodline thing. If my father were to die tomorrow and each of this children would get some beloved sentimental items I would be really pissed if my husband who is very close to him would not get anything. Plus, I really understand why she wants to have something to feel more connected to her new family, especially since she is estranged to her parents and won’t get anything from them to wear on her wedding day. The problem lies solely in the fact that I don’t have anything to give her without hurting other people. I will not prioritise her feelings above my daughters.

Commenter: Bet you the reason she is estranged from her parents is an eye opener if you ever find it out. Whatever she told you it was is BS.

OOP: I don’t know the reason, but I will admit the thought has crossed my mind. The fact that she is willing to blatantly ignore her nieces’ feelings and that wearing a piece of heirloom jewellery on her wedding day is more important to her than the girls’ connection to their beloved grandmother is a bit concerning to me.

Commenter: If she's trying to feel closer to your family, is there any jewelry that is yours or your sister's that could be given or loaned to her for her wedding day that isn't inherited from your mother?
Your sister and your daughters who actually knew and loved your mother should, of course, take precedence over someone who has only heard about her! NTA and your brother is being absurdly pushy.

OOP: We have now decided to pitch in together to buy something new for her to wear on her wedding day and have as a gift from the family. I hope she will accept this. I could also give her something from me as a loan but I feel buying something specifically for her would probably be better. It’s not that I feel she shouldn’t have anything and I would honestly offer to give her a piece if I had any spare pieces to give.

Commenter: NTA. Your brother is marrying a psycho. She’s never met your mother but is distraught that she can’t wear her dead MIL’s jewelry. You are correct, your mom left the jewelry to you and, as you stated, your mom didn’t even leave your brother’s wife (his ex) jewelry when she passed. Your brother and his fiancée are acting crazy entitled and you need to tell them no and that if they bring it up again you’ll have to excuse yourself from their presence. They are trying to bully you out of your daughters’ heirloom jewelry, their birthrites.

OOP: I can actually see why she would like to have something, we were all very close with mom and keep her memory alive and it’s tricky to enter into such a dynamic years later. I would give her something especially to wear on her wedding day (she is estranged from her parents) if I had anything to give but I can’t take away from my daughters to help her feel better.

Commenter: NTA - the items were left to you. No matter what happens in the future, your daughter's will be your daughter's. The same can't be said for your brothers fiance. That relationship could end, and then the jewelry wouldn't be part of the family anymore. If they were married when your mother passed, maybe I'd consider it, but they haven't tied the knot, so don't give her anything.

OOP: This has been brought up a lot but I feel I can’t in good conscience bring up the fact that their marriage might fail as an argument.

Commenter: NTA if your mom specifically left them to you. Y W B T A if you and your sister decided between yourselves to take all of the nice jewelry without giving any to brother. What about if/when he has daughters?

OOP: He was childless back than with no intention of starting a family and his first wife got an inheritance of her own and so did he. He was completely fine with us deciding what to do with the jewelry as neither him nor his ex wife were interested. The issue only came up with his fiancée recently. Had he voiced his objections ten years ago I would not have spent the last ten years preparing my daughters and the situation would be different. Also legally all items belong to me and I am under no obligation to share or discuss with anyone. I discussed with my sister because it seemed fitting.. again.. he was not interested.

Ask the first wife for paintings?
Asking first wife for her paintings might be an even harder no than the jewelry question honestly.. she received those paintings because she loved our mother and her art and she was a family member in her own right after replacing my mother as my disabled father’s full-time caretaker after my mother fell ill. I am not close to her anymore but I respect her and my mother‘s wishes enough to not hunt her down after seven years for what is legally and rightfully hers.
Update (Same Post): May 22, 2024 (Next Day)
Thank you all for your kind messages and advice, I would never have expected to get so valuable support and inside from strangers on the Internet. Thank you really from the bottom of my heart!
We came together with my brother and his fiancée after I had many of your replies to my husband and my sister. I stated clearly that I will support her in any way possible and that it’s very important for me to welcome home to the family properly but the jewelry is off the table because I believe I am fulfilling my mother’s wishes and I cannot hurt my daughters. I added that I believe that this is not the right way to join a family and that we should strive to resolve this conflict before it creates more tension between my daughters and their uncle and future aunt and also amongst us siblings.
At first, I thought my brother really saw my point and he seemed happy that we offered to pitch together to buy something for his fiancée. Unfortunately she is not willing to accept this. as some of you pointed out, she seems to believe that she ranks right beside my sister and me when it comes to our late mother and supersedes my daughters.. well.
She talked about her rightful place in the family and how she went no contact with her family because they denied her the respect that she deserves and that she will not hesitate to do the same with us. She also talked a lot about the pain of not being able to have any heirloom jewelry for her wedding. And honestly, I believe only a few days ago I would’ve given in presented with her tears but thanks to your kind words I was able to see through her emotional manipulation and really now that I am aware of what she’s doing it is so obvious..
I must say my brother looked very uncomfortable. She then stated that it would be a waste to give the pieces to my daughters since they would just sell them for the money to buy make-up wich is absurd. I ended the conversation at this point stating that I hold firm to my boundary and that they are free to do whatever they feel is the right thing for them.
I am heartbroken and I hope my brother will change his mind. So.. no happy ending but thanks again.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: Thats great youve seen her for what shes really doing! Good luck to your brother because the fiancé sure sounds like a peach! Well done for looking out for your baby girls (I know they’re 18 but they’ll always be your babies!)!

OOP: They are capable and wise but they should not bear the consequences of the quarrels of others that they have no part in. And although I am heartbroken by all of this I can firmly feel my mother’s support in this as she put me in charge to protect what belongs to her granddaughters and daughters. Thank you for your support!

In response to a longer comment:

Thanks again.. I appreciate your encouragement. I hope their next move will be one of love and understanding but it’s hard to tell what they will do. While I don’t believe they are considering to physically steal the pieces from me, I have now given the two pieces meant for the younger girls to my mother-in-law for safekeeping at her house until the dust settles. She is obviously livid at the treatment of her granddaughters. The girls felt a lot of pressure from their uncle which is so heartbreaking.. my eldest on the other hand calls her future aunt a grifter and says she will not accept any change of plan to accommodate her so she will receive her piece as planned. She has also been looking forward to wearing it for a long time. I have no words really at this point.. hoping for the best.

​

I think my only option is to completely resign as a stepparent. I desperately need advice about sustaining a marriage with polar opposite parenting styles, & how to deal with teenage boys with no manners or basic hygiene.
There is a lot of background here I will try to keep as to-the-point as possible. I am 34 with a 10 year-old daughter. My husband is 39 with a 15 year-old son. We each had kids at 23. We are 5 years apart, as are our kids. We were also friends for 5 years before “courting” & built a strong bond of trust already, so yes, we courted. I had rejected him a few times over the years, as I was abstinent after a toxic relationship & did not want to repeat the same patterns. Over the covid lockdowns, we started talking, texting, facetiming more than ever. When he asked me out again, I told him I was not interested in dating without the ultimate goal of marriage, to which he said, “Good. I don’t want a girlfriend, I want a wife.” 3 months later, we became engaged & our marriage is truly amazing & fulfilling in so nearly every way except one - my daughter & I, some of the most playful & outgoing outdoorsy girls you could meet, have no idea how to connect to his son. And there is nothing to make me think it is worth even trying anymore.
Miraculously, husband & I both get along extremely well with our co-parents. I could not see myself with someone that doesn’t. Neither of us have court orders or child support or rigid schedules. My daughter’s bio dad is one of my best friends, & I made very clear that a relationship with me means respecting his role. He said the same of his son’s bio mom. I come from a very blended family in which this is the ideal. My parents were at each other’s weddings & all get along & still get together. Our own coparents attended our wedding a year & a half ago. And that meant the absolute world to me & hopefully if not now, someday our kids.
For sure, my husband could not be a better stepfather. He & my daughter share inside jokes & their own games & pranks. She has her own nickname for him & will run to him & hug & climb all over him. They convinced me to add baby goats to our homestead, & have been tending to & bottle-feeding them both, a beautiful connection & commitment to share. He says, “She makes it easy.” And to put it lightly, his son does not - but I am absolutely not allowed to talk about it without getting ridiculed.
I first met the son when he was 13. Overweight, awkward, all of his hair in front of his eyes. He then retreated to his room. I know him to be the exact same now. He is 6’0 & I think over 200lbs, larger than my dad. He defaults to locking himself in his room. Unless asked to help stack wood or play a game with the rest of us, he only emerges to use the bathroom (in which he never brushes his teeth or washes his hands), or ask his dad for food - of which, he literally only eats yellow rice & chicken. He will otherwise smash an entire bag of “Takis” or flaming hot Cheetos at 10 AM & continuously throughout the day as they are available to him. He plays live multiplayer games from morning often to midnight or 3 AM, with my daughter’s room right next to him, where I blast the fan & AC & ocean sounds to drown him out. Calling this out seemed to be calling stepson out personally, so all I can do is adapt. Daughter thankfully likes it cold.
I have tried to be as soft & supportive in airing my grievances to husband, but they are never taken with grace or accountability. I am not perfect & have definitely been passive aggressive with his reactivity, as he takes my issues as insults rather than something to work on. He casts blame on bio mom or Covid, & now me. “I don’t know what goes on at bio-mom’s house, we moved an hour away & he gets carsick! I’m out of his life!” “It’s because he was stuck inside for 2 years!” “Are you sure you didn’t HEAR him say hi?” “Good news, I’ve been living with him 15 years, never sanitized a doorknob in his life, & I’ve been fine!” “I wouldn’t want to leave my room with you criticizing his every move either!”
Our first night in our new home for example, was a nightmare. My hand lotion moved from the bathroom counter to the back of the toilet - so then into our room immediately. He left the toilet seat open & my razor covered in pubes. He left open bags of chips with crumbs all over the counter. “It’s an adjustment, it’s hard on everyone!” Husband said over & over. This was an understatement, being that my daughter has been raised to ask for anything from snack time to screen time always with “please,” “thank you,” & we eat out of bowls that we put in the sink rather than stack in our room with soda cans & candy wrappers.. I am familiar with the saying, “Living room kids come from healthy families. Bedroom kids do not.” Daughter is a living room kid. Stepson is a bedroom kid. Either way, I had never had personal items used without asking &felt extremely violated by stepson, then upset that husband blamed me for it instead of understanding where I was coming from.
This remains true nearly a year later. My husband has started lashing out while drinking the past few months, accusing me of “HATING” his son, which is extremely hurtful as I do not harbor any hate in my heart for anyone. What I disdain is the way he is raising his son under our shared roof & living spaces, & that he refuses to acknowledge or communicate about it. As things were not greatly improving, I personally had a talk with stepson about basic manners. I said, “When you enter this house without a greeting or making eye contact, it is an insult. It comes off as rude & entitled & I don’t like feeling like a ghost in my own house. This is your house too & I want you to feel comfortable. But you can help me feel more comfortable too.” “Yeah, okay. Sorry.”
I have truly never had a real conversation with this kid. He does say “hi” & “bye” & the occasional “thank you” now. At this point, it is abundantly clear that he does not want me in a step role, & neither does his father, & neither does bio mom. So it seems I have no choice but to let it all go & suffer bad manners & hygiene, silence, & now bitter resentment from husband.
What I have observed is that I actually“coparent” with my daughter’s father. We coordinate around each other’s schedules, we make decisions together, we communicate about her physical, emotional, spiritual, educational, & social wellbeing. Husband & bio mom do not. They parent in isolation & simply let the other do as they please, which has resulted in a child without manners or discipline. This has led bio mom to put the kid on PROZAC without husband’s consent. This horrified me, as someone who only goes to the doctor for stitches. My daughter’s doctor is the naturopath who midwived her in the bedroom she still sleeps in at her father’s house. I understand not everyone is as holistically minded, but I begged husband to get him to a nutritionist first. The child is obese & malnourished. But too late. Bio mom did as she pleased without communication, which seems constant among them.
I have not shared my views as I know they are not welcome. Bio mom is medicated, her other 10 year-old son (deceased dad) is medicated, & now teenage stepson is as well. Husband blames our distance from him which feels like an indirect blame on me, as we are closer to my community & business as husband works from home. But truly they live in the ghetto, & I have always lived on the coast & barely like to drive through those inner cities. I set up a high school tour for them here which is one of the best schools in the state with a tech program I thought stepson would love, but he chose to stay with his friends, in one of the worst schools of the state. He incredibly won class president, though has dropped a bunch of honors classes & continues failing others.
My birthday was last week. When my husband asked what I wanted, I said baby back ribs & family. I just wanted to grill & chill due to an insane work week. I run a housekeeping business & worked for 24 hours in 3 days opening up for the summer rental season. I did not want to go crazy hosting & knew I would if we invited friends. “Are you sure? You wouldn’t be hosting, I will be! You don’t have to do a thing!” He emphasized over & again. So when a friend ended up visiting from out of state, I was ecstatic to invite her & our mutual close friend to BBQ with us. They are single moms with 4 toddlers between them & wanted to camp on our land.
We had a great day grilling & running the sprinkler & feeding the animals. Husband had promised stepson would be outside with us all day. Toward the evening, I asked where he was. “Do you see any other teenagers out there? What’s he supposed to do?” I was hurt. “Well I don’t see any 10 year-olds either, but [daughter] is still out there, & you actually said he would spend the whole day with us. I just want some time all together.” Husband knocked on his son’s door & said, “Hey it’s her birthday, it’d be nice if you come out & spend some time with us.” Then he did, & even if it was just a quick basketball game with his dad & he introduced himself to no one, it still meant so much to me.
So later when we had helped friends & toddlers set up a tent & fire in our woods, I hugged husband & thanked him for bringing stepson out with us, saying family time was all I wanted. “You two have such a healthy relationship,” my friend says. At the time, it uplifted him & he said he loved this friend to death. A few hours later, he said it was “hilarious.”
We had invited stepson’s mom, but she was out of town. My coparent joined us however, & he & husband stayed at camp with the moms & toddlers while I went to tuck daughter into bed around 9. We played some trivia to unwind, said a prayer, & I kissed her good night & went to start the dishes. Husband & coparent came back around 11 when I was ready to go to bed myself. They were suddenly on a completely different level as my slow & steady beer intake. Both their legs were gashed & covered in blood from their hike without a flashlight, which they thought was hysterical. They were loud & silly like, “You can’t go to bed, it’s your birrrfday!” & I realized, ah. They were drinking my girls’ tequila.
Coparent went on a drunk spiel thanking me so much for all the love I am, how I keep the family together, this & that & showering me with slurred praise. Husband was drunkenly yet enthusiastically agreeing & thanking me, saying I was the best. I tried staying up with them to be polite but they were so deep in conversation on a different level that I went to go make the baby goat formula for their 5AM feeding & go to bed. But I couldn’t find their bottles. I raised my hand with the men, gradually higher & higher to ask husband if he had seen them. “I see you have your hand raised, but hang on, let me finish this point,” coparent said. So husband finally noticed, & I cut in anyway asking if he had seen them. “As a matter of fact, no, YOU fed the goats last so I have no IDEA where they are,” he raised his voice, literally pointing a finger at me.
That suddenly spiraled into another drunken heated accusation of how much I hate his son. I started crying & saying all I wanted was for him to be with us today & that I was grateful he brought him out. He fought me saying they can never have a good weekend because of me, called me an “@$$hole,” & said “F you ,” 3 times in a row, upsetting me so much as there was absolutely nothing I could say, to the point I slugged him in the arm to get him to stop. This has happened twice before embarrassingly with alcohol, when he just yells & yells things that are not true & curses at me that I can’t even respond vocally. “You see how she treats me?!” Both men of course freaked out & coparent started yelling at me to listen to husband. This essentially turned into 2 hours of incessant berating from both of them. They both cried during their own tangents. It spun out of asking for baby goat bottles & continued til 2 AM with, for the first time, continual threats of divorce.
“You are not in this relationship & do not need to mediate it,” I told coparent.
“Like it or not, I am! How you treat husband affects all of us! His feelings are VALID & you need to be quiet & listen to him!” he said.
“I’ve heard this all before & it is simply not true! I do not hate stepson & he wants to divorce me because he thinks I do!”
“Emotions cause us to say things we don’t mean, he does not want to divorce you & knows you don’t hate him,” coparent said.
“Oh no, I DEFINITELY believe she hates him. And if I have to spend the last 4 years of his youth with my son being constantly criticized, I will absolutely divorce her!”
“I did not criticize him once today! I never criticize him, I am trying to help us become a functional household!”
And he just went round & round in the same circular aggressions that can only hear themselves. I continually begged for them to stop yelling as daughter’s window was open, the baby goats needed sleep, our rabbits didn’t need that stress. But I got yelled at more for that. “You can’t control passion & you need to sit down & LISTEN to your husband!” Coparent kept insisting. But I had heard it all many times before. I even tried to sleep in the goat pen, trying to settle the poor babies, still hearing the men raise their voices about me, how being critical was just my nature, & then got yelled out of there.
Around midnight, I tried to resign again & go back inside to finish dishes when stepson emerged. “Do you know where Dad is?” “Oh he’s outside, you can probably save him from [daughter’s dad].” He went into the bathroom. So I poked my head out while they continued bashing me & said, “Stepson needs you.” “I’ll be right there.” I went back to the dishes. Stepson comes out of the bathroom. As always, flushes, no faucet (or hand-washing). “He says he’ll be right there sweetie.” No words, back into his bedroom. 10 minutes go by & still no husband as I continue the endless dishes. I poke my head out again. “Did you not hear me? Your son needs you.” “ALL RIGHT!”
Turns out he needed dinner. Despite a huge spread of barbecue & potatoes & corn & pasta & salad & veggies & dips, stepson touched none of it & needed his chicken & yellow rice. So husband literally cooked him dinner at 1230AM, all the while continuing to accuse me of hating him whilst doing so.
Coparent authentically apologized the next morning on the phone. “You screamed at me for HOURS when I was ready for bed to listen to falsities I have heard over & over without ONCE trying to hear me.” He got it. He humbled & admitted specific wrongs & I accepted his apology.
“Sorry” does not seem to mean anything when you throw around the “D” word like that though. Husband pledged to stop drinking. To his credit, 3 days later, he still hasn’t. But when I said, “If you think I am capable of hate, you don’t know me at all,” the best apology he could give me was, “I’m sorry, I don’t think you hate him. But I know you don’t like him.” Then, “I don’t want to divorce you. I feel like I ruined our entire lives in one night.”
I told him that this is going to take more than “sorry” to heal, especially where blame is still cast, & he will have to “show” me. I don’t even know how, through more conscientious parenting? We haven’t slept in the same bed in 3 nights. I haven’t cooked for him, but I still clean after him. We finished some homestead projects in near-silence together.
I think I must resign to being the invisible ghost stepson makes me feel like. Do I have ANY role here but to resign & accept his parenting & continue mine with my daughter alone, while he reaps the benefits of an amazing relationship with her? Isolation parenting just like with stepson’s biomom ? If not for my daughter & our animals & gardens, I would just want to lock myself in a room all day too. But that’s what is so hard for me to get. We have nearly 30 acres & this child is permitted to be a blob on a screen living on empty calories all day & night. I cannot & will not blame a child for anything. I told my husband that when a plant isn’t thriving, you nourish it & improve its environment. He said he didn’t get it. And as deeply as I love him & don’t want to even think about divorce, I have never been so unattracted to him.

Hey, I’m just so very sad. I have one daughter and another on the way. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my daughter and the next one to come more than anything. But my spouse is so mean to me all of the time. No matter what I do she it getting angry at me. Like not a normal wife anger. It’s like so unreasonable every single day I just can’t handle life anymore. I try so hard to be positive and love my family but I’m just so down and depressed. The only thing that gets me through these days is weed which I also want to stop. I want to be a good father for my children but I don’t feel as if I can be myself due to my spouse being so mean and angry all of the time. Like today for example was my birthday, the morning went alright and then we went for lunch to a restaurant with my daughter and spouse. My spouse told me that we need to pick up glue and a small bic lighter. I asked why we needed the bic lighter and she said cause it’s smaller. Which I didn’t really understand so I inquired further why we needed the small bic lighter (cause I’m curious) she then started to get very angry why I’m asking this.(the reason was that she couldn’t grip the bigger one we had at home and needed a smaller one, which is more than 100% ok with me) but it got so intense that it ruined the entire day. She put headphones in when we were at lunch, and hasn’t apologized or anything. The rest of my birthday has been terrible as well, if it hadn’t been for my 3.5 year old daughter I would have broken down fully today. I know that fight seems like a wtf fight but it’s like this almost every single day. I’m constantly walking on eggshells and idk what to do. Any advice I’ve been given I have tried and it has failed. My marriage is so far gone idk if it can come back. I love my daughters so much and I fully understand what can happen if we split. I just don’t know how to handle her anymore. There is so much to my relationship that I don’t even know what to say, I’m just so fucking sad and hurt every single day. No matter what strategies I do it doesn’t work, she is so unreasonable and angry all of the time. The anger comes out very quickly and there is nothing I can do to remedy it when it happens. I know it’s abusive towards my daughter and I but I also strangely enough, love my wife. Idk what I’m asking for or anything, I’m just so sad and hurt right now idk what else to do.

I just want confirmation my parents are narcissist.
So... my mom has never really been loving. My dad had/had PTSD. It is his way or the highway. My mom will straight up tell people "I learned to ignore him", "I never wanted another kid, I should've got my tubes tied after the first one, his dad is the only reason I didn't get an abortion". She will buy me things, and then when i'm telling her she is acting horribly yelling at me for something minimal (not writing a note in the cashapp for example) and then say "I wasn't treating you horribly when I bought you this thing earlier!!"
I don't remember the last time I got a hug from either one of my parents.
My parents never actually helped me get my license, they claim they "Tried to teach me!!" but got about 20 driving hours for me, refused to fill out the time sheets, and would yell and freak out at every mistake I made on the road. They bought me a barely driveable $900 grandam @ 18 after I was told i'd get a new car when I graduated (I am 22 and graduated in 2020) I was expecting like a decent condition 2007-2008 car that would reliably get me from point a to point b but was bought a 2002 wrecked grandam with hood latches due to deer wreck damage and struts so bad that the back end would slide out from under it on minimal potholes and tires that I had the fill back up daily to keep it off the ground. $900 car that required $2000 worth of repairs. I had to eventually buy my own car (they never helped me fix it depaite my dad being a literal jet mechanic) and drive it back and forth from work illegally until I got good enough at driving to get my license, because it was apparently easier for my mom to continue driving me to work on her lunch break and picking me up from work at 7 then to spend a few weekends and hours after work some days with me preparing for a drivers test. They then sold the car randomly and were planning on pocketing the money until I told them hell no that was my 18th birthday gift and that was my money.
Both my mother and my dad would get physically aggressive and spank pretty excessively but not to the point where I was like "this is abuse". As I grew older and grew to be a bigger teenager it turned into them moreso actually trying to physically fight me, me running as to avoid a fight as they yelled things like "I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR F***ING HEAD OFF" and locking myself in my room or running around outside until they were no longer violently angry.
One time I got a full blown blender thrown at my shoulder as a kid because I didn't help my dad find his shoes when he was late to meet some of his work friends, he also in that instance chased me a quarter way down our street (thankfully I was like 16 5'10 and fast) before going home and cooling down.
One time he also threw a tape measure at my shin and I still have a mark in my shin bone from that.
Lots of promises that were never kept and were forgot about. "If you help me with this massive months long hard process I will buy you shing expensive thing" helps and never gets said thing but gets yelled at the whole time for not doing things "the right way"
My mom also called me ugly as a kid, told people in front of me (and I quote) "Yeah I was pissed when he came out with red hair, i don't like red heads!"
She would tell people I was a little bastard and would tell them the amount of adhd medication I was on and how it was enough for like 2 adults (i already started questioning why the hell I was on that amount of adhd medication in the first place, i was basically m37hed out on adderall and vyvanse and concerts as a 7-14 year okd kid)
One time she bought me a pokeball as a kid at walmart, and our way home I did something she didn't like and she grabbed the pokeball and chucked it out the window and bragged to people about it
One year my brother got a laptop and an ipod and some other stuff and ya boy got some action figures
My mom thrrows a fit that I don't "contribute in the house" or clean when I stick to my area of the house, don't use the kitchen or dishes (i have my own dishes I use and I eat out mainly so i don't have to deal with them) and don't created that messes that need to be cleaned up and I keep my areas of the house clean. I could probably go count 7 wrappers and 6 pop cans and 3 plates down on our kitchen bar right now and I do not spend any time in the kitchen but I am apparently supposed to clean that stuff up as well as do the dishes that I don't use.
My dad will say "Here i'll tell you what you need to do" and if I do anything other than agree with him he will say "well then you're f***int stupid"
My dad would get violently angry at you if there was a tiny piece of lettuce in his taco or anything but meat and cheese on his burger and if you laugh at him for how ridiculous he is reacting he redirects that anger and amplifies it towards you
My parents and brother would kinda gang up and do things that would "trigger" me and laugh and yell at me when I reacted badly.
I just want confirmation that this is narccisism. I've been looking for what to call my experience with my parents for a while and I think this is it.

I feel like since summer is approaching in the northern tropical hemisphere, that means rebounds and summer flings are going to be on the up and up.
So I’m here to help those who may not be aware of what a rebound actually looks like in paper and maybe have no idea they were in one at some point.
Heck, it can help many keep a grounded view of their ex is currently rebounding. It’ll help you cope a bit easier when you make sense of why they may have just suddenly in 60 days or less randomly jumped into a new relationship far too soon!
Anyway, let’s dive into this topic.
A rebound relationship means starting a new relationship before emotionally healing from a recent breakup.
Some people may use rebounds to suppress their emotions, get revenge on their ex, or avoid feeling alone.
The signs of a rebound relationship may be challenging to recognize, but emotionally unavailable people often focus on their past partners and fear commitment.
A rebound relationship typically develops when one person remains hyperfocused on their previous partner, keeping them from being fully present or invested in their new partnership.
Someone may harbor old feelings for an ex, whether positive or negative. Getting into another relationship before emotionally healing from the last one can leave their new partner feeling alone, invalidated, and underappreciated.
Here are ten signs you’re in a rebound relationship:

1. They Were in a Recent Breakup. The time needed to heal from a breakup depends on many factors, such as emotional investment and connection. People struggling with a recent breakup often seek ways to fill the void of a former partner. Therefore, you may be the rebound if your partner has ended a relationship within the last few months.
   
2. The Relationship Is Moving Very Fast. Your partner may be rebounding if the relationship is progressing faster than typical. People in rebound relationships often want to convince themselves (and others) that the relationship is genuine. They may push you to have sex, define the relationship, or even move in with them sooner than expected.
   
3. They Keep Comparing You to Their Ex. Another warning sign of a rebound relationship is constant comparisons to an ex. A rebounding partner views your actions, looks, and personality through a specific lens, expecting you to behave and appear the same as their ex.
   
4. They Have a Fear of Commitment. While commitment issues do not always hint to a rebound relationship, they can show the person is not ready to move forward with you. You may struggle with this, especially if you are willing to commit to this person.
   
5. The Focus of the Relationship is Sex. You may be in a rebound relationship if your partner is only interested in sex. Pay attention if you only get together for sex or avoid doing activities together outside of the bedroom.
   
6. Their Ex Is Always Around. Your partner may see you as a way to get back at their ex if you “coincidentally” run into them frequently. Your partner could monitor their ex’s social media to keep tabs on their location so they can “accidentally” run into them. In this case, you are the decoy used to create jealousy in the ex.
   
7. They Aren’t Trying to Get to Know You. A major red flag is when your new partner doesn’t care about important information, like your birthday, college major, or dog’s name. They may not be not interested in getting to know the real you, seeing you only as a stand-in for their ex.
   
8. They’re Always Posting on Social Media. Many rebounding people want their exes to see how “happy” they are with their new partners. For example, they may excessively post videos and pictures of their relationship with you. This behavior is out of jealousy and spite, not genuine love for you.
   
9. They Seem Really Bitter or Angry at Their Ex. A big sign someone is not over their past relationship is having unresolved bitterness or anger about an ex. Speaking poorly or bitterly about an ex is often a sign of a rebound relationship. They are not ready–or able–to move forward with you.
   
10. You Have a Bad Feeling Something Is Off. Our gut usually tells us when something isn’t right. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but the relationship just isn’t working. Perhaps you feel they are being dishonest or untruthful about their past relationship. Trust your gut.
    

Being in a rebound relationship can be disheartening, and learning the person you care about is rebounding with you can be devastating.
However, your partner may be unintentionally rebounding, and your relationship is not necessarily doomed. There are many different reasons people look for rebound relationships.
Sometimes they want to improve their self-esteem or get over someone they love.
Common reasons people seek rebound relationships include:
• To get over an ex: Getting into a new relationship can help people find a resolution over an ex-partner.
• To form an emotional connection: Someone may seek out a new relationship for the emotional connection they crave. When done in a forthcoming way, this can actually be healthy and even healing.
• To make their ex jealous: People who start new relationships and parade the new partner around often do so to make their ex jealous.
• To fill a void: Many people with anxious attachment or low self-esteem struggle with being alone. They might immediately find a new partner to avoid this uncomfortable feeling.
• To prove to themselves their recent breakup wasn’t their fault: A person may seek a rebound relationship if they worry about how they look to outsiders. Perhaps they are embarrassed or worried that they look bad to mutual friends and family after a breakup.
What to Do If You Are in a Rebound Relationship?
If you are in a rebound relationship, take a deep breath. You may blame yourself for the situation, but you probably couldn’t have prevented or changed the relationship.
You cannot force someone to be ready for commitment, and you do not deserve a partner who does not love you.
Here are a few tips on how to cope with being in a rebound relationship:
• Trust yourself: You know true love and care when you feel it. Don’t let a rebounding partner convince you otherwise.
• Focus on what you can and cannot change: Remember that being a rebound is not your fault. You cannot change the person, so focus on moving forward and finding a partner who values you (if you are ready).
• Practice self-care: Focus inward on your needs. What will help you recover from this situation? Turn to activities that bring you joy and pleasure.
• Leave the relationship: Consider breaking up with your partner if they are not meeting your needs. A rebound situation can be okay, but only if you are comfortable with the relationship boundaries.
• Lean on your support network: Seek support from friends and loved ones. They can provide much-needed guidance during challenging times.
• Get back out there: Don’t let this bad experience turn you off from dating. Many good people are out there waiting–just watch out for the rebounders!
Hopefully this helps answer a lot of questions, helps many learn the signs of one, and puts to rest any thoughts about ex’s for anyone in the group what a rebound actually looks like thru and thru.
Edit: Typo(s)

There's two major points people have to realize about Assassins Creed Shadows.

1. Yasuke was a real person, he served under Oda Nobunaga as shocking as that is it's very true. It is historically accurate and if you really care that much look up proof on Google because it's there. He made appearances in many anime and games too, for example, he had his own indie game, he was in the Samurai Warriors series and the anime on Netflix and many more. You mean to tell me that all these people put him in their game because he was some fictional character that wasn't copy written? No because he's very real.
   
2. People forget that Assassin's Creed is a Europe/American series. I only say American because of the live action movie, American NPCs, and player characters introduced at times. I know that Ubisoft headquarters is somewhere in France. Now I may not be accurate about that stuff but I do know that there are reasons certain characters are chosen and I personally believe it's because they had an ancestor that lived in the country of origin. So likely an American or European or African, I mean it really depends on who is the new protagonist. If they are linked into the Animus then it's likely their ancestor was Yasuke however because their is also an Asian female then that means they had multiple ancestors besides Yasuke in Japan. So what's wrong with that, they still gave us an Asian character and she doesn't look woke looking, she actually looks okay, thank God. Now I can do two playthroughs.
   

As for me I'm a 32 year old, white male so try to say I'm biased and you'd look like a fool. This is the two cents of a white male saying this is okay with me and I'll still buy the game. Besides too much information or not it literally comes out on my birthday, I gotta take some biased pride in that at least haha...
How do you feel about the drama?

My birthday's very soon and it's only been 2 months since D-day. I'm going to be going on an outing with my WH to putz around because neither of us made any plans. After that we'll have dinner with our kids and my parents.
I'm terrified that I'm going to break down tomorrow. I found out about his infidelity literally the day before Easter and I spent that holiday in a maelstrom of emotions. I wondered to myself if every special occasion would feel like this and so far they've all sucked.
I sincerely hope it'll get better because so far everything seems like a farce and I'm just waiting for the next blow to come while we try to find a new normal.
I think WH and I have made some good strides even if we haven't gone to MC yet. And yet when I do spiral I end up saying things that I'm afraid are true and are just discouraging to WH.
For example, I'll remark how I feel like this "strong couple" vibe we present to others is just a front and the only thing that's changed between now and FOUR YEARS AGO (when I didn't know of his betrayal) is that I'm in on the fact that it's a front.
He wants me to look to the future we have together. I'm stuck reliving a past that I can barely remember (thanks, PPD) but I have visceral reactions to. He wants to move forward from this and I get bogged down so quickly I feel like I'm a step away from falling in quicksand at any time.
It's not fair. He's had 4 years to process what a shitty thing he did to me. Now that he sees how much it's stripped me bare I'm supposed to get up to speed and look ahead.
I'm just feeling so unprepared right now and hope the near future doesn't result in another spiral.

First Previous Wiki
Penny gazed at the quartet of Elders. They were all wearing the merchandise she remembered from the last Judgment, which was exceedingly awkward. Mainly because they were wearing shirts with her face on them. But it was also oddly endearing, in a way. Until now, she hadn't seen too many Elders that were on her side.
Elders that weren't just Kashaunta or the familiar faces she already knew, like Spentha or Rho and Sai, actually showing appreciation of her, felt odd. Even if these ones went a little too far in it.
"You're even more beautiful in person, Liberator," one said.
"Uh, thanks. I appreciate that. I'm glad that you all like me. Rho and Sai told me that you all are interested in something I can give you?"
"Yeah. Maybe a short interview? We won't be like that airhead reporter. We'll ask the good questions."
"Yep, we will."
"Right then," Penny said. "Well, I'm glad to meet you."
"Thank you. Now that we're here, we'd like to know how you plan on taking care of the gang leaders."
"Well, presumably by imprisoning them. I don't think they deserve to die, even if others do. I'll leave that decision up to Justicar and his various judges in the criminal system."
Penny didn't like having to lie blatantly. She wanted to kill the slavers quite brutally, but doing that was a bad idea right now. Saying it also was a bad idea, for a similar reason. And Justicar's system was worryingly preferential to Elders, from what she'd looked up after the meeting with Pundacrawla.
"Aren't you worried that the Judges won't give proper justice?"
"I trust Justicar to do everything that is necessary."
Another lie. Justicar would do whatever he could to maintain his image. Hopefully, that wouldn't be at the cost of the Alliance's very existence.
"Got it. By the way, what's it like being human? Walking on only two legs. It seems kind of unstable. Do you fall a lot?"
A genuine curiosity from them was another breath of fresh air. It was the kind of question a quadruped would definitely ask, which put her more at ease about the nature of what they were trying to do. Even more than their evident support of her, with all the merch they were wearing. Penny felt a smile crack at the corners of her lips, unbidden.
"Not really. We can use our arms to steady ourselves pretty well. Obviously it's not as easy to balance on our two legs as it is with your four, but it's still good enough. In fact, the sprinters in the Olympics use all four limbs, since running as fast as possible also requires pumping our arms. As for what it's like to be human, it's hard to describe. For many of us, it will feel colder or warmer than Sprilnav would feel in the same temperatures, due to thinner skin. Our eyesight is more frontal than yours, given our lack of snouts, so our blindspots are a lot bigger. Our feet require shoes for rough ground, and we heal slower than you by around 20%. We can't really clack our jaws to the scale that you can, though we can make them meet."
Penny bared her teeth, showing as she opened and closed her mouth. It was nice to be able to talk about things like this.
"The Olympics?" one of them asked.
"It's a competition about athletics," Penny said. "Running, jumping, throwing, diving, swimming, skiing, snowboarding, and a lot of sports. There's specific divisions, too. Like how there's a 100 meter dash, 200 meter dash, 400 meter dash, and even an 800 meter dash for those with high levels of psychic energy. Though really, psychic energy and genetic editing have been messing with the events for a while now. And there's a Winter, Summer, and Space Olympics, each with different sorts of events. They move from city to city, though the Space Olympics are pretty much always on either Luna, Ceres, or Mercury. There's a lot more information out there on various events, but it's an old cultural practice revered by the entire species. Even more so since Phoebe's increased the prize pools for everyone."
"How does your species handle space in general? I know that you guys did things way differently before First Contact."
"We did. Mining companies kept tight control on all asteroid mining, while nations controlled planets like Earth and Mars and large planetary bodies like Luna. Supposedly, a few people planned for a cloud city on Venus, but we couldn't risk having such a vulnerable population because they'd have to rely on giant balloons to survive. That would probably be the least secure way to live, given the existence of rogue organizations and all that.
As for spaceships, most of them since we really colonized Luna come equipped with spacesuit bays, zero gravity water and food packs, oxygen tanks, emergency seats, specialized anti-micrometeorite hulls, and radiation shielding. A lot of the older military ships also were equipped with big radiators until World War Three, when it all became masses of drone warfare, with the big ships kept mainly for cargo and lanes where mass drone control was impossible.
Once the Vinarii came and we got shields, we started building big again. After all, it provided a huge number of jobs, and in the post-war economies, especially with VIs in place, a lot of people needed work. But we still go and do asteroid and moon mining, star lifting, and energy gathering. We built an orbital ring around Mercury, the closest planet to Sol, to help with all of that. It doubles as a production hub, too. Now, it's all in more systems and with a lot more friends."
"Speaking of aliens, what theory does your people have on why so many creatures resemble one another? Our jaws are adapted for hard shelled creatures, and we're told that many planets have oddly similar variations of those."
"Crabs."
She guessed what they were getting at.
It is odd, isn't it? Nilnacrawla observed.
Perhaps that is another one of the Source's whims, Penny thought.
Maybe.
A few of the Elders made exclamations of shock.
"You even have a word for them that directly translates!"
Penny chuckled. "Yeah, carcinization is a bit of a meme in the science community. But I've heard the most mainstream theories since the First Contact are that the Source itself is uncreative. It has a certain template of creatures which it largely doesn't alter, though it can take in inputs from beings close to it, perhaps even influencing them."
"Influencing them?"
"Yes. Modern depictions of wendigoes, folkloric creatures from North America, a continent on Earth, are shockingly similar to the Knowers in appearance. The internet depictions of them in particular like to emphasize canine qualities, and often show them with skulls visible directly, and with dark brown or black fur. Recent depictions, as in the past 300 years, differ from their original appearances quite significantly, with the canine characteristics in particular being enhanced.
We have sorted through all known images of these creatures and found roughly 80% similarity with the Knowers and tens of thousands of images that are literally exactly the same as Knowers. The ones we searched all came before World War Three, far before even the First Contact with the Vinarii, much less the Knowers who were entirely underground at the time due to the radiation of their home star. We believe that the Source managed to influence this facet of human culture with the actual existence of a real creature.
Other examples exist, like how the Trikkec look very similar to Komodo Dragons, Vinarii look very similar to insects known as a mantis, and the Acuarfar look exactly like insects known as wasps with the single exception of their furry snouts and green instead of yellow markings. The Sprilnav species itself shares high amounts of similarity with a fictional species known as Elites in early 2000s culture, particularly with your jaws, though you all have red skin instead of grey or brown.
The Junyli, Dreedeen, and the wanderers are the main species without high amounts of appearance in our cultures at some point. This correlates with the idea of the Source being the influencer, as their predecessors all were used to fight it. Many species of the galaxy look like parts of our culture or Earth's creatures. The proximity of these examples makes this far more suspicious than if they were across the galaxy.
But since they existed first, the only answer must be that the Source brought the influence to us first and planted the ideas in our heads. As for the ones which look like Earth creatures, all of them are old enough evolutionary branches that copying from them to Earth makes more sense. Though the references centering around the early 2000s is quite odd, it is also roughly when the internet came into wide existence, so it is also possible the Source gave the ideas a push so they would propagate, for an unknown reason. Like if it seeded the ideas that propagated across the early global network Humanity used."
"Hmm. Fascinating. We've seen evidence of the 'seeding' process among some historical nations near the galactic region of Earth before. So the Source re-uses and alters depictions of life and also life itself?"
"Maybe," Penny said. "Unless the Source is more directly tied to life than we think. There's a conceptual Death, but no conceptual Life. Isn't that odd?"
"Conceptual Life died in the Source war."
How did that really work, though? Penny asked Nilnacrawla.
Imagine a conceptual being. A few of the Progenitors, as well as Narvravarana, went up to try to harvest its power. It refused, and Narvravarana used its unique abilities to try and force the deal.
Why was your civilization like this?
Excess and greed, partly. But we couldn't really do much more expansion. Vertical expansion also had its limits if we wanted to remain relevant for the remaining lifespan of the universe. So Narvravarana, along with a few of the greatest rulers and leaders of Sprilnav society, started looking to other dimensional planes. They figured it was best not to let the problem get too much worse. Or at least, that is what they say. I believe it was to harvest more resources to use against our surrounding enemies.
You didn't have any allies? Penny asked.
At that time, all the powers of the universe were enemies. All the allies eventually merged through millions of years of normalization. We happened to get on the universal stage the earliest, so other civilizations we encountered had little choice but to surrender their independence. Some fought, others didn't, but the outcome was the same.
That seems terrible.
It was, though the other universal civilizations were no better. Some of them just exterminated all alien life they found that couldn't fight back. In that sense, the pre-war Sprilnav civilization was one of the greatest, and that's why I fought for them. Obviously, I'm biased in that regard, though.
Thanks for telling me, father.
No problem, Penny.
She refocused back on the conversation at hand.
"But a thing cannot be alive if it dies. The concept of life doesn't work that way. So maybe the Source just... took in the concept of life? Or absorbed it into whatever psychic energy really is, considering that it's responsible for all of our existence?"
"That's so crazy it might actually be true," one of the Elders said. "You're incredible, Penny."
"Uh, thanks. You're all pretty great too." Her eyes drifted to the images of herself on their clothing. She couldn't really help it.
"I have a question for you."
"Yes?"
"Do you know what I'm fighting for?"
"I assume since you're asking it here, you don't just want a one word answer," an Elder said. "I would say yes, and for the liberation of the Sprilnav from the stain of slavery. Though going deeper into your history, you have also fought for other species, either in wars or just generally moving around. It does look aimless, mostly, since the galaxy's so big. But I'm sure you've got a way through that."
"In some way. Part of why I'm here isn't just about my people. It was at first, I admit that. But as I have lived here, on Justicar, for days and weeks, I've seen you less as alien. It makes it easier for sympathy and easier to break out of simple mindsets. So far, there are many problems, but there are distinct pieces. The first is that many people want to uphold slavery. I'm not sure why, but they do. It isn't profitable, and it isn't moral. Robots are cheaper in every way, and don't need food or water.
That means it's illogical or emotional. So I could try and solve the problem with violence alone, but it won't be addressing the cause, only the symptoms. I need to get to the heart of the matter. And I think it has to do with Elders' memories and the gradual woes they have accumulated going through life. I don't want to tear that away or drug them into believing they're fine. I want to find a way to outlet that productively. The second part I have identified is scale. The galaxy is enormous, and your species is incredibly numerous. I could fight planet by planet for the rest of my life, and liberation would still be difficult.
That also means I'd need a better way of doing things. Maybe an economic or political incentive. Emotional reasons will not work permanently, nor will logic, since we are in this situation. I have found several ways to address this. Sadly, since the gangs are likely monitoring this feed, I can't just outright say my strategy. All I can ask you all to do is to believe. Believe that I have a solution, and that I and those who stand with me are working on it. Believe in me because I believe in you."
None of the Elders questioned or ridiculed her words. Most of it was because they were fans of her. But one of them, an Elder named Rahautiti, had a distinct glint in his eye. Their gazes met only momentarily, but Penny could tell he knew.
And so she appeared in the mindscape, even as they concluded the interview, which would be the first of many. It was a ploy to just talk about human culture and ideals a bit more, to get it out there. Because the hivemind's theory was correct.
In the universe, ideas had power. That power could be weaponized against those who previously stood to gain. The first part of it was the image: Nova as an unbeatable bastion. Lecalicus as the Beast, a monster capable of star-crushing rage. Twilight as... whatever she did. Penny wasn't really familiar with the Progenitor's image too much, and the various names, like the Silent Night or the Smiling Darkness, were just so unbelievably edgy she cringed every time she recalled them.
But Rahautiti understood so she moved her mindscape avatar to see him.
"Hello again, Penny. I am no threat."
"I know. I'm glad that your group is led by someone as capable as you, as well as the other groups you dabble within."
"Who discovered it?"
"Phoebe. You met with Ezeonwha, and the android wanted to ensure you weren't a way for Yasihaut to kill him."
"Yeah. We did get approached about that, actually. We're supposed to kill Ezeonwha when you walk into the Judgment hall. Of course, we won't do this, and she won't be able to retaliate against us easily while there."
"Thank you for your honesty, Elder," Penny said. "It seems I'm in your debt."
"Nonsense. 2,839. That is the number of children I have had. 2,626. That is the number of children of mine which were enslaved. The remaining 213 died in unrelated incidents, with nearly half of those involving slavers killing them. I remember all of their names, and all of their faces, Penny. I want all the slavers in this universe dead."
"I cannot achieve that."
"You cannot," Rahautiti agreed. "Not with my help or even that of Kashaunta and Lecalicus. And certainly not right now. I have not lived this long to be incapable of compromise or patchwork solutions. You show great promise. I understand your aversion to killing and the circumstantial reason why you are not doing so now. I will not grow upset if you do not resume killing when the Judgment ends. Nor do I harbor a grudge against you for the speeding space entity you left outside the room to avoid uncomfortable publicity. You are incredibly young.
A sliver of a life. But you are strong, and you are mature. That sliver of your lifespan already outshines all I could do with a trillion more years, Penny. You are right in that this isn't something you can punch your way through. Trauma is part of why slavery still exists, despite it being a wholly unjust reason for the Elders to make such a sport of it. I am sure you know the story of the war, with a great hero in your head and Kashaunta at your side. My line of work is what I started to help you. Every thought about you being the Liberator, every eye that glances on you freeing slaves, helps you to gather conceptual energy. My talent happens to be great enough to sense the Pact of Blades you have, as well. If you want, I can teach you how to hide the mark on your soul and your mind."
"I would like that, yes," Penny said. "And thank you for being so reasonable. I will ask Kashaunta to protect you from what consequences come for refusing the offer on Ezeonwha."
"There are going to be attacks on him, you know. Him and your ship."
Penny felt an odd feeling in her soul. Cardi's power flared around him, and she squinted at the sky. She just barely saw a sliver of a tentacle. Most would have mistaken it for a normal speeding space entity. But here? On Justicar, with Exile obviously not being the cause?
Only one being would cause that. Fate.
Given the subject of their conversation, it was obvious what was going on.
Penny tapped Rahautiti's jaw, adding a thin mark of conceptual power so she could easily find him again. She focused on the conceptual mark she'd left on Ezeonwha. A twinge of conceptual energy came from it. It was accompanied by various impressions, like fear, pain, and acceptance.
"I have to go," Penny said. "I will be back later. Displace."
She appeared next to the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office but not next to Ezeonwha. It was carnage everywhere she looked.
"Champion!" an unknown Elder yelled. "I am Elder Na-"
Her rising fury surged, and it took all she had not to dismember him. The distant thought of the Judgment stayed her hands, though only just.
Penny's fist collided with the Elder's jaw at twice the speed of sound. A piece of his jaws flew free. Bone fragments hit the ground behind him. Hundreds of soldiers fired on her, and she slammed them to the ground with pure will. Penny tore their guns away and sent them each to pummel the Elder in front of her with as much brutality as she could. His powerful armor wasn't as capable of defense against physical attacks as it was against her psychic energy, and so he fell.
"You... cannot save him," the Elder spat. Fields of psychic suppression fell upon her, reducing her power.
"Manipulation through Determination," Penny growled. "De-"
No! Nilnacrawla said. Do not kill him! Not yet!
"What goes up will go down."
Air hardened around the Elder and accelerated rapidly.
The Elder smashed into the shield five miles above with a speed just slow enough that he wouldn't die. He fell from it and then hit it again at a more modest speed. He'd bounce on that until the Guides came to get him.
But Penny had another target. One she had to save instead of attack.
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High Judge Tassidonia awoke to the sound of explosions. He grabbed his swords, his main gun, and the personal shield he reserved for only the most dire occasions. The sky was erupting in war all around him, and buildings were already falling nearby. The spires of skyscrapers rained down upon the entrances to the Underground, crushing thousands of fleeing Sprilnav under their wide impacts.
His implant identified members of the gangs nearby, making their way to his home.
"Retribution Cycle!" Tassidonia cried. A hidden door opened, and he boarded a small hovercraft that sported a high amount of defensive and offensive technology, a gift from Justicar for dealing with all that he had related to the Judgment. Only this time, he wouldn't be on the next one. But already, the destruction was spreading.
Micro-missiles rained upon friend and foe alike. Several detonated against the layered shields. The mounted turrets on the side of his hoverbike shot lasers into the enemies his implant identified.
"Elder Tassidonia!" an Elder cried nearby. "For the crime of defying the will of-"
Tassidonia called his fury to bear. He rammed his mind into the enemy Elder, disorienting her. She reeled, about to attack, when a thick laser smashed into her chest. It pushed her against the wall, and Tassidonia kept the pressure up until her body melted. He listened to her screams impassively, occasionally sending blasts from his gun at the gangs when their members started to stray too close.
The thick red beam did its work within twenty pulses. His swords began to float beside him, keeping pace as he sped away from his home. The entire apartment complex shuddered and began to lean, its foundation being destroyed by some effect below. Tassidonia abandoned it with only minor regret. He'd known this moment would come. Everything he needed was already with him.
He linked into the Guide network, directing squadrons to attack the breaches he'd identified. Orbital strikes fell upon them in quick succession. Thick beams of light pierced through the lower planetary shields from orbital platforms, their guns honing in on Justicar's enemies. Tassidonia's implant was linked to the grid as well. So when he eyed buildings occupied with too many gang members, orbital strikes fell on them a few pulses later.
Fire and plasma rained all around him. Explosions and smoke blossomed all around him. More missiles fell from his hovercraft. A fighter ship appeared beside him, its simple stealth revealing itself to his eyes. Tassidonia waited for the pilot chamber to open, and his craft stowed itself behind him when he got in. It was fully equipped, so soon, Tassidonia was in full control of a weapon of war.
His first order of business was detecting the gangs' most fortified areas. He peppered those bases in shield-weakening mines, followed by bunker-buster missiles. Several anti-air turrets hit him, but his shields prevented them from taking him down. He dropped three high-end Butcher Androids into the fray of the largest battles.
One of the adjacent fighter wings in the separate shield sector dropped a nuke. At that moment, Tassidonia made a decision.
Whatever insanity was going on right now wasn't worth staying here on his own. He turned his ship upward, narrowly avoiding nearly fifty missiles shot from another gang fortress, which was really just the lower floors of a supermarket. Thick slabs of concrete were being set up by androids and slaves from the Underground. All he could do was watch from above and attempt to mark those that might be a problem.
Justicar's Grand Fleet was moving in, though only the carriers and their escorts were doing anything of any scale. The armies were mobilizing, and it seemed that war had finally broken out. Justicar, while isolated due to the Judgment, would have to win a war that threatened to topple his rule entirely.
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Ezeonwha woke when the walls around him shuddered.
An earthquake?
Groggily, he activated the lights in the room. Phoebe's android was charging in the wall. Her limbs swayed with the motion. The walls shuddered again, and the lights went out. Thin, tiny cracks spread in the walls, increasing his worry factors massively. His implant notified him that this wasn't a dream. Distant screams reached his ears, and he went to the window.
Hordes of Sprilnav were running on the ground, tripping over each other to escape. He heard the thump of footsteps approaching from outside. The android activated, standing up.
"Move away from the doo-"
An explosion tossed him across the room. A Sprilnav carrying some sort of mouth weapon faded into view for a moment, smoke recalibrating the stealth field. And then he was gone. Phoebe smashed into the Sprilnav, her fists pummeling the assassin faster than Ezeonwha could comprehend.
Phoebe's arms turned into swords, and she stabbed the Sprilnav at least fifty times in a single pulse. She turned to grab him, but before she reached him, a second explosion sent him flying out of the now-shattered window.
The massive skyscraper loomed large, and he saw the ground beneath it ripple. Dull thumps sounded from below, and large, circular caverns opened beneath the 102nd Visitor Welcome Office. The whole building started to list forward, and Ezeonwha frantically activated his emergency personal shield as he started falling faster and faster. A bullet hit the shield. And then a second one. Gunshots echoed out in the distance, and he saw other Sprilnav falling from broken windows in the falling skyscraper. Gunfire erupted on the streets as Guides engaged a growing army of attackers bubbling up from basements of shops and businesses.
He saw spurts of blood exit the Sprilnav nearest him, bullets tearing holes through the woman's body. Piercing screams surrounded him, a terrible chorus that reminded him of the worst wars he'd fought in. But here, his training could do nothing. She was already dead, and he knew that he was the target of this whole attack. His eyes watered, and Ezeonwha felt so powerless. So useless.
A Corrector emerged from the side of the tilting skyscraper, eyes fixed on Ezeonwha. Then he looked down. Somehow, Ezeonwha knew when the orders had been sent. He knew that it was Astipra in the distance, a jetpack on his shoulders burning a thick flame beneath him.
Astipra looked back at the building and flew toward it. Ezeonwha felt the wind rushing past the shield as pressure. Astipra, far above, vaporized falling chunks of the skyscraper with blasts from his arm cannons. He pressed back against the skyscraper, the jetpack going into overdrive. The metal bent inward, and the groaning and twisting structure continued its fall. Blasts of light from Astipra again vaporized the set of falling chunks.
"Penny," he said. It was almost a prayer, really. His desperate mind was scrambling for whatever it could get. "Please, save me!"
He didn't know if she could hear him. Logically, it was impossible. And in a battle such as this, unlikely as well. Rippling explosions erupted across the facade of the falling skyscraper as rockets struck it. More explosions bloomed as lasers from distant police vehicles, Guides, and Astipra destroyed more of the fast-flying missiles and rockets. They pounded on the world around him, a horde of madness threatening to break his brain. He could feel the wind and gravity equalize as he reached terminal velocity.
And all he could see was the world descending into war around him. The 102nd Visitor Welcome Office continued to slump and lean against Astipra's best efforts. More bullets hit Ezeonwha's personal shield, and peppered the Guides moving over to save him. Air ambulances were shot from the sky. Even small fighter crafts were shot down by powerful ground lasers. EMPs thumped, disabling all the higher functions of his implant before he could think to use it.
A much larger explosion bloomed out, and Ezeonwha followed the rocket's trail to an Elder on the ground, standing in the wreckage surrounding a sudden tunnel opening. The Elder stared at him in glee, and he lined up another shot. Two Guides fell upon the Elder, who flew up using a jetpack to cut them in half with his sword. A hard light hologram lifted a large gun, pointing at Ezeonwha as he fell.
His eyes widened. Ezeonwha did everything he could. He angled his legs and arms. He pushed at the air. He even hefted the meager psychic energy he had, struggling with all his soul to escape the death he could feel was coming to him.
Guides swarmed beyond the shield appearing, while gang soldiers died by the hundreds to carpet bombing. Personal shields sprang up to block the explosions, and the Elder had survived. A thick red laser cut one of the fighters in half from the smoke. Above him, the collapsing facade of the skyscraper consumed Astipra entirely, though large gouts of plasma and thick explosions emerged from within. He could survive if it fell upon him, but Ezonwha could not.
Penny materialized far below, closer to the field of battle. A sweeping wave of gang members began disappearing. A bullet smashed into her head and her stomach, detonating in bright explosions. A personal shield flared and disappeared. Missiles and lasers slammed into Penny by the thousands as psychic energy gathered. A constant roll of words fell from her tongue, but without his implant, they were not translated.
Missiles crumbled into dust. Lasers impacted raw space in front of Penny before bending down and back to their origins, destroying automated turrets. Bullets still hit Penny and the Guides by the thousands, firing too quickly and densely for her to entirely block. But the large ordnance from the gangs continued to work against them.
Penny looked around, confusion evident on her face. But amidst the thousands of wounded and dead Sprilnav falling from the broken windows, Ezeonwha was hidden too well.
Shattering glass could be constantly heard, and he could feel the distant screams in his soul. A bullet smashed into his personal shield again, disabling it. A pulse later, he lost feeling in his legs.
He tried to reach out to her mind, but the war in the mindscape was equally intense. Too many Elders and Guides battling it out along with various suppression artifacts made it all impossible. He could sense Penny's influence, but couldn't directly reach her.
He let out a breath, knowing it to be the final one.
I'm sorry, Penny, Ezeonwha thought.
I wish you luck in the Judgment, and I am sorry I caused this to happen to you.
Penny finally appeared in front of him, eyes wide-
Blood erupted. A searing pain in his head told him his implant had just shorted out. And in the mindscape, he saw a mental attack heading for him, its brutal power evident. He closed his eyes.

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The Unforgettable Role of John the Baptist in the Bible

Who was John the Baptist? Often mentioned in the Bible, his story is crucial but sometimes overshadowed. Let’s delve into his life and better understand his significance in the Christian faith.

John’s Miraculous Birth

John the Baptist’s story begins with a miracle. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were elderly and childless. Luke 1:13-15 states, “But the angel said to him: Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.”
Imagine the joy and disbelief! Zechariah’s astonishment was so great that he doubted the angel and lost his speech until John’s birth. Reflect on this: Have you ever received a blessing so unexpected that it left you speechless?

The Forerunner of Christ

John was not just any preacher—he was divinely appointed to prepare the way for Jesus. Mark 1:2-3 recounts, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way—a voice of one calling in the wilderness, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”
John’s ministry focused on repentance and baptizing those eager to turn from sin. He led a simple life, clothed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey, emphasizing his message of humility and repentance. Can you think of areas in your own life where simplicity might bring you closer to your faith?

Baptism of Jesus

John’s significance soared when he baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. Matthew 3:16-17 narrates, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
This event marked Jesus’ public ministry’s beginning and God’s approval. Imagine witnessing such an extraordinary confirmation of faith. How would it have impacted you?

Imprisonment and Martyrdom

John’s boldness did not waver, even when it put him in danger. He openly criticized King Herod’s immoral marriage to Herodias, leading to his imprisonment. Ultimately, his forthrightness cost him his life, as described in Mark 6:17-29.
His bravery is a testament to standing firm in one’s beliefs. Are there situations where speaking the truth could come with personal risks? How can John’s example inspire you to act despite potential consequences?

Interactive Reflections

Ask yourself:

• What can I learn from John’s life about courage and humility?
• Are there times I need to prepare myself or others for new spiritual beginnings?

Reflect on these questions and see how John’s life might guide your spiritual journey.

Strong Call to Action

John the Baptist’s life holds powerful lessons about faith, courage, and humility. His unwavering commitment to God’s message can inspire us to strive for these virtues in our lives. What aspects of John’s story resonate most with you?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below and share your experiences or reflections on how John’s life has influenced your faith journey. Don’t forget to subscribe for more insights into biblical characters and teachings!
Engage with Us! If you found this article helpful, share it with your friends and family. Let’s spread the wisdom and inspiration that the Bible offers. We’d love to hear how John the Baptist’s story has impacted you!
If you want to want to research more Bible Answers on your own, please try our Bible Answers GPT. It’s easy to get lost in the interesting responses you’ll find… every search is like a new treasure hunt 🙂
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TLDR my live-in partner has shown concerning behaviors and today was the final straw. I know I need to end things but he won't speak to me, so how?
We've been together for 4 years and lived together in a rented home for 3. Due to a past DV relationship I was in, I promised myself that I will never depend 100% on anyone else for my shelter and income, so the lease is actually only in my name, I'm able to pay all the bills (not that I would ever toss him out with no warning, bc that happened to me once) and we own very few assets.
A few examples of this concerning behavior include: 1) going through my phone while I was asleep once & texting a male contact to make sure I wasn't cheating on him. 2) acting like a dick every time I go anywhere, even if it's family-oriented. 3) hasn't slept in the same room as me for 5 months, even though I have expressed that I have abandonment issues and it's important to me that I don't wake up alone. 4) doesn't want to speak to or interact with me unless he's hungry, I'm having surgery, or he wants adult time. 5) told me a few months ago that I needed to start telling him where I'm going, when, with who, and how long I'll be there. 6) told me the next time I go out with anyone other than him, one mutual friend(32F), or family, he's leaving me. 7) refuses to attend family functions with me and attempts to make me feel guilty for attending them myself. 8) ignoring me when he's angry and then telling me it's not his fault that I "make him less of a man" and insinuating that I'm cheating by going places without him.
I do not do well with situations like this due to my past. I have a great deal of anxiety about the whole ordeal, but also in general struggle with PTSD and anxiety. It's taken many, many drafts of this over many months to ask here the right way, but I went for dinner and drinks after the last day of school with some coworkers and he ignored my texts, then made a comment about how long I was taking, then left the house THE MINUTE I sent my "on my way" text. I texted him when I got home asking where he was but he ignored that too. He came home and stomped right to his computer as usual, put on headphones, and ignored me when I said hi.
Because of his behavior when I go places, the last time I went anywhere with anyone other than family was last June, shopping with my best friend (F25), and before that was the previous July, drinks with a longtime friend on his 21st birthday. I can't live isolated and depressed like this anymore.
As much as I don't want to break up, at this point in my life, the cons outweigh the pros, and I think he's been trying to get me to break up with him since he stopped sleeping in the same room regularly (a year ago was when it started. He uses the excuse of the dogs "bothering him"). Advice on how to break up with him in general would be helpful, as every serious relationship I've ever been in has ended catastrophically, but I'm mostly asking how I do it if he's ignoring me?

I am posting on here for advice. I am a 22 year old woman and I feel like all aspects of my life are a mess.
I am set to graduate a year from now but in total it would’ve taken over 6 years to graduate. I am not even sure I can get a decent job when I graduate and I am not sure if I studied the right thing.
I am a few thousand dollars in credit card debt because I was reckless with my money and I am trying to pay it off as soon as I can.
I was in a haram relationship with a non Muslim for 4 years and while I broke it off 3 months ago, he still texts me everyday and I can’t seem to get him out of my life. He scares me a lot and he has threatened to tell my parents about our relationship before and he refuses to delete our old pictures.
My father doesn’t care about my well being and just wants me to work and give him my money and I am not able to get things I need such as dental work on my broken teeth.
I don’t have any genuine friends in my life let alone Muslim ones. I just go to work and go home and don’t really go out with anyone which makes me very lonely. I tried to go to the masjid and meet new girls which I did but we never end up becoming real friends.
I am really insecure. Insecure about my looks and my intelligence and I feel like it is really obvious to everyone. That might be the reason I don’t have friends.
I can’t stop sinning whether it’s listening to music, smoking hookah, not wearing the hijab, gossiping, and more. I try to pray my prayers but I have no khusoo. My iman is so low but to be completely honest I never had strong iman to begin with.
I feel like a big part of me wanting to become more religious is because everyone around me is becoming more religious for example my cousins and my sister. And I feel shame. So I am not sure if I’m intentions are pure. I am just not really sure where to go from here. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

It seems to be impossible to add "No Flair" to a post. I am not sure if this is intentional. "No Flair" is a category in the menu when selecting a flair, however a post cannot be made if it is selected.
I think it would be better if unflair'd posts were allowed. I often find that flairs do not accurately reflect the specific type of post being made. Some posts don't require flairs, or the type of post being made is too uncommon to really require one. For example, birthday wishes to Leafs alumni or questions about parking around the arena could be left un-flair'd. In my opinion this wouldn't take away from the organization of Leafs. To my knowledge flairs do not have any functionality (eg being able to sort by flairs).
With that said, I also think there are some extra categories that could be added.
One categories that I think would be useful is "Autographs / Memorabilia", which I think is different enough from "Art / Picture" and could be used for autograph identification and other memorabilia related posts.
"Discussion" could be split into "Discussion / Analysis" and a new category called "Rant / Debate".
There could also be a "Quote / Hot Take" flair for those posts that are just Twitter links. I feel theses types of posts don't really fit the definition of "Discussion" although they are often flair'd as such.
I don't think that changes to flair categories are that important, but it could make a slight improvement to Leafs.

My mom is sad that I'm now an Atheist, and has set me up a conversation with a friend of hers who is a preacher, and apologist.
While I want it to be a very respectful conversation, I also want to clearly point out the big problems that I have with the notion that the bible is a reasonable thing to believe in, and I want to point out the contradictions in God's supposed nature. (Things like God being All-good, all-powerful, and yet suffering exists) (And Him supposedly wanting to know every one of us, and love us, and yet, I'm left with zero response to my thousands of prayers)
So I'd just like y'alls thoughts on what are the main obvious, undeniable, un-rationalizeable problems contained in the bible, and just the God belief more generally.
Things I'm thinking about so far:
- Divine hiddenness. Of course, the biggest, most obvious problem with all religions, and Christianity specifically: Where is God? Why does he seemingly not manifest in any detectable way in reality, which leaves him indistinguishable from the thousands of other God myths. And when people do claim to have experiences of their specific God, of their specific religion... it's always vague, and has a myriad of obvious natural explanations.
- Probelm of Evil. If God is an all-powerful, and all-good God... then I see zero justification for him creating the concept, or possibility of evil. No amount of suffering can be justified if you're an all-powerful God, that cares about his creation like a father. People will say "Well, there are certain types of suffering which lead to great benefit down the road. Sometimes we learn from suffering. Sometimes suffering is motivational"
But if God is all-powerful, and created the literal rules of logic, and all of the concepts in our reality... then he could do literally anything. Things far outside of what we can imagine.
Could he *not* create a world in which we retain 100% of our freedom, and flourishing, while also not enduring a bit of suffering? If he can't, then he is not all-powerful. And if he can, but does not... he is not all-good. Children die of cancer. That's enough evidence that an all-good, all-powerful God does not exist. And since this God is supposed to be all-good, therein lies the contradiction.
But people will appeal to "We cannot know why God does these things, but he probably has a good reason". But they can't assert that. If they don't have any evidence of a good reason for which God could let everyone suffer... then that is a standing defeator to the all-good all-powerful God claim. You can't appeal to god 'maybe sorta probably having a reason', if you have no evidence of this reason itself, and cannot even imagine a possible reason.
There's also all of the scientific claims that the bible makes that are obviously demonstrably false. Young earth, worldwide flood, the Exodus... Talking animals... Giants, Angels, people living to 1,000 years. No evolution... and much more of course. But I'm not too scientifically minded right now, though I'd like to be. I want to look at the evidence, and be able to explain why those claims in the bible are false, but at the moment all I know is that other scientists haven't found evidence for the Exodus, or flood for example. So I'm not comfortable defending those scientific positions at the moment, without doing more research myself.
Do you guys have any thoughts on what I should bring up with him? Or just general advice? I'm not too social, so we'll see how well I'm able to convey my thoughts. Hopefully it's an overall intellectually honest conversation, where neither side gets too defensive.

Ya Allah I no longer know what to do. I am so stressed and this issue has been consuming my thoughts and my entire life.
I am in the process of getting married. I have met this brother and weve talked for a bit about marriage and we've kept it halal with no flirting or anything of that nature. And its to the point of where we have both decided to get parents in and family more involved in the next couple weeks. (I have already spoken to my parents)
We havent completely decided on marrying on another in case theres some unforeseen circumstance while we and our families are getting ti know one another. But we both agreed if all goes well we should be married within the next year inshallah (atleast this is what weve both agreed on the rest is in Allahs hands)
Now to this issue. I can't stop. I want to be pure for my spouse and be ready for connection with my spouse. But, now I have this new hope of marriage and not having to worry about this anymore. Its made my thoughts so much worse. Now I feel like In so close to it being halal. I fantasize about it constantly.
I have done everything to stop, I take cold showers, I write things in a notebook to keep my hands busy, I go on walks, I focus myself at work, I spend time with my family, everything to distract myself. But anytime Im alone. It pops in my head and doesnt stop. Especially when Im in bed. Trying to sleep is the absolute worst now. This has gotten to the point of where I start to release myself without realizing Im doing it and I have to like stand up and verbally tell myself to stop. Or my thoughts are so bad where I uhm well finish without physically touching myself which is so embaressing. I feel like a teenage boy. Its like my pants press against things or my bed does when im laying on my side and I just I hate it. I catch myself rubbing against things just to feel even the slightest bit of something and I dont know what to do Im so lost. I dont want my spouse thinking less of me because of this fault of mine.
How am I supposed to wait months and months. When its constantly on my mind for example me and my potential spouse are speaking the other day about some religous issue? I dont remember exactly because my mind went elsewhere. And its not their fault its all on me. And I feel like such a hypocrite because I would consider myself very religous. But this is really my only pitfall. And it makes me feel like such a hypicrite. Like I have connection with allah and I would say my imam is high. I pray 5 times a day the best I can (sometimes I feel guilty to the point where I am depressed and in bed and I miss my prayers) , Im always trying to studying Islam, amd always reading/listening to Quran, Allah occupies so much of my day. I just feel like when Allah is there this is. And I just I cant do this anymore...😭
They do nothing to be provacative in any manner and doesnt flirt with me. Yet just their voice alone makes my brain go haywire now. Its not even their fault its my own desires I was like before I met them. I just feel so guilty.
If I dont get married I will continue to sin. Marriage feels like my only hope.
I have been married in the past so I know what its like and I want it again and again. I have come so far. I just need to stop for a few months thats all 😭 Less than a year inshallah. How can I be so weak.

I (F31) BF (M29) together for 5 years, don't live together was long distance for 3.5 years.
Am I the AH for canceling the BF plans I made for his 30th after changing them 3 seperate time to accomidate his changes of mind?
I planned a whole weekend away as his birthday falls on a saturday for the BF to drive a steam train & tram and spa day all things he had mentioned on his before 30 bucket list but didn't do.
I told him I made plans but not what so they would be a surprise on the days.
He then told me his family were comong to town so he 'couldn't' see me on his birthday which is a saturday.
I said fine then canceld the weekend.
Then I booked him tickets for a very expensive concert also on the bucket list that cost more than all the original plan combined.
He then wont give me a straight answer to what day I can see him.
I snaped when he was being cagy about giving me a day and time to meet a few weekends back and it ecilated into multiple examples where I said "you can't even give me a day to see you for your birthday."
We had a discusion and I said how much effort I put into the original birthday plan and its imposible to plan anything as he wont commit to a day or time ever for anything - everytime we are at mine its always a 20 min back and forth "what do you want to eat?" He can't seem to make any decisions and I keep telling gim it is infuriating.
Then he suddenly wants to see me on his birthday and bumps his family to Sunday.
I can't rebook the original things because they get booked up months in advance. He still dosen't know what it was.
So I picked a VR thing & hotel for Friday night and a broadway show for Saturday all things he wants to do. We are staying in our own city so he can have all Sunday for the family wothout having to rush anywhere.
Then today he sends me texts that he wants to take days off work wed-monday and go somewhere.
I say fine, then give him some options based on the places he wanted to go.
Then it turns out they are only half days which is pointless to go somewhere because on his half days he wont finish until 2 then on Sunday he would still need to be back to see his family...
I told him he can pick what he wants to do and can plan the things and tell me where to meet him because I have planed and canceled so many things at this point I am not doing it again.
I canceled what I planed except for the concert tickets that wont be for months and will still give as a present.
Now he just wants to go back to the second thing I planed in our city - am I the AH for saying no?

To start this off I (16M) am a student and just became a senior. I am not ahead I just have a weird birthday on August 18th. But after finishing this year I have noticed a lot of frustrated teachers. As well as some pretty stupid answers from students (someone answered the Berlin Wall on a question about the 38th parallel for example). My U.S History teacher especially as one day after a test he literally just split the room in half. The ones who failed and the ones who passed a test halfway through the first semester. I don’t know what happened in there but just was told it was bad. Thats just one story from that year. But to the teachers here just how bad has it been? What was your worst experience? What do you think could be done to fix it?

As the title says, I am having trouble arriving at a decision regarding our future. I know this is not the first post of its kind but I really need some outside perspective on this.
How we got together We met up in the freshman year of college and we immediately became friends. We were both in a relationship at that time so there was nothing romantic at first. This lasted for about half a year until after her birthday party we stayed up in front of the house for about an hour before parting ways (mind you this was at 3AM). A very good sign and I could tell she was into me at that point. So after yet another few months (exams and other things in between), finding myself single, I finally decided to "make a move". At that point I didn't think much of it, I was single, I knew she liked me and I thought "Why not?"
Where we are now Fast-forward six years, we are still together. We've been living together for 3 years now and we both know each other through and through. I work a lot and time just flew by, I can't believe it's been that long and yet I still find it difficult to make a decision. I don't want to keep her trapped in this relationship and I feel responsible for making a decision soon. Not knowing if we'll stay together is becoming a big issue for the both of us: we can't plan things far ahead (we would have had an apartment by now) and generally there is an uncertainty in the air which definitely takes its toll on the relationship.
About me Before I attempt to describe the relationship, a few words about me. I am a very analytical and driven person. I usually make decisions based on evidence and facts. This is my one and only proper relationship (aside from juvenile high school stuff) and I've never had sex with anyone else. As such, I have a huge fear of missing out and I feel like I can't gauge how good this relationship actually is because I have no measuring stick. Therefore, I'll try to be as objective as possible and hopefully you kind people can help me out!
Pros of the relationship

1. Trust - We both trust each other fully, from sharing our deepest emotions to money to passwords and everything else
2. Communication - We can talk about anything and work through most issues that way
3. She supports me in my business venture - For the past 2 years I've been working on a business venture and she has been very ok with spending less time together and generally supportive even though we don't yet share finances
4. Spending time together - Since I work a lot, I try to spend the little spare time i have together with her. Therefore, being able to do most of the things I want to do together with her is great. She is open minded enough to give things a try and see if she likes them.
5. I can be myself when I'm with her - I can be goofy and not worry that she'll think less of me
6. We share a sense of humour - We both make each other laugh very often
7. She is strong-willed yet kind - She has a very sensitive side but that doesn't mean soft. If she didn't like something, she'll make it very clear.
8. She always helps me with advice - If I need it, she always provides good and insightful feedback and really helps me to come to a decision
9. We almost never have fights - I would say we are both reasonable people and whenever an argument comes up we solve it quickly. It is usually I who compromises (she gets a bit more heated) but it is never a big deal and we rarely come back to it (we've never had one that lasted more than half a day)
10. She puts up with some of my quirks - Just to give an example - we talk in English around the house despite not being native speakers (I asked her to do this since it would be more useful for the both of us)
11. I can be dead honest with her - You know the classic "Does this dress make me look fat?". I can tell her "yes" and she'll not make a fuss over it. Maybe it's not what she wants to hear in the moment but I've made it clear she can rely on me to be sincere and she values that a lot.
12. She sides with me whenever she thinks I'm right - To give an example: Me and her mother don't get along but she always takes my side when she thinks I'm right
13. We are aligned in terms of our future plans - We both want to live a similar lifestyle and we both want kids (and are pretty aligned on how we want to raise them)
14. She has high moral values - I feel like I can leave stuff up to her judgement and she will never try to take advantage of me
15. No fear of the relationship getting worse - Should we get married, I don't have any concerns related to her changing. The only way this relationship degrades is by me not making up my mind

Cons of the relationship

1. Physical attraction - While it definitely faded, it was never amazing. I wish I could say that I find my girlfriend to be the most beautiful but that would be a lie. She is reasonably good looking but I feel like I see her just as a regular girl (no love filter). If anything, I am more aware of her imperfections and spot them easier then on strangers. I very rarely think to myself that she looks good and that I'm lucky to have her. If I wake up earlier, I don't have that loving feeling when looking at her, I just get on with my day.
2. Sex life - The sex itself is actually good. I am definitely the one with the higher sex-drive and the one more willing to try new stuff but it is not a deal breaker. It's more the lack of sexual tension that is lacking. Aside from the first few months (when everything was new), I never felt like I was "under her spell" or "really wanting her". As a result we don't have sex that often.
3. Self improvement - Ideally you want to be with someone that makes you better. In our relationship this is rather one-sided. I've usually been the one pushing her in various directions: career, health & fitness, trying to make her more confident and it's honestly quite draining. It feels like if I'm not there to push her, she will not keep it up.
4. Energy level disparity - I feel like she gets tired very easily. If she has what I would consider a harder than average day, she is absolutely knackered. She always gets her sleep hours but it seems her battery is just much smaller. I often find her spending a lot of time on the couch. I am concerned about how this will affect us going forward, particularly when raising children
5. Being apart - While she is gone for a few days I almost never miss her. Don't get me wrong my life is still better with her in it but seeing her come back doesn't improve my mood by that much.
6. Her family - She comes out of a divorced family and none of her parents remarried. Her mother in particular has deep attachment issues and wants to fill the void by spending time with my girlfriend. She is also from out of town so it's even more difficult. Thankfully my girlfriend does her best to balance things out but it's still a huge problem. Not to mention that whenever we all meet up there is tension in the air
7. Ambition - I would like to see her work more towards the goals she wants to achieve. I often feel like a parent trying to help her stick to the good habits (this is of course with her blessing)
8. House chores - I do my best to help out but it feels like this is not something she cares about that much - keeping the house clean and having everything be in order
9. Feeling in love - I never felt in love with her, not even early on. Perhaps its me, perhaps its the relationship
10. Appreciation - While she also does plenty for me, I feel like I do more for her. I always try to make her a better person, help her out whenever there's something I know better and generally put her wellbeing above mine. I'm not saying she doesn't appreciate it but I don't feel like she does to its full extent. If she would do the same for me, I think I'd value it a lot more.
11. Memory - This seems like a silly one. But she forgets stuff quite easily: things we've watched or read, conversations we've had. It's not a huge deal but enough to be annoying in day to day life.
12. Reacher - Settler - Overall, I feel like I am settling for less but maybe I'm wrong. I know the grass can seem greener on the other side so that's why I'm here asking this question.

Conclusion - Thank you for reading this far She is my best friend, someone with whom I can talk about anything and do anything. There is no doubt in my mind that I could spend the rest of my life with her without it being a bad outcome. With that being said, I feel there is room for better.
I guess I thought the relationship would run its course. That after a few years together it would become obvious. That either we would break up or we would naturally transition into marriage.
This is the most important decision I've had to make and it is a huge burden. To the point that I often dream of us being at the altar and me saying "Yes" while not being fully sure. I feel like I have all the data to make the decision and yet I can't.

Hi all (and who knows/I hope dr K),
Prepare to read!! But if you don't want to, get the TLDR at the bottom; I am very uncommon with Reddit so forgive me any mistakes!
I've been strugglin' along in life for a while now (am 26 years old) and even though I've been doubling down on dr K's videos last 6 months or so, it's been 10 years I've been working very hard on myself (sometimes really really obsessively). As following is how great my life is going;
I just got hired for a new job (System Engineer in IT), got a good base (got a small but nice apartment with garden, money, stuff, a cute cat) and I am very healthy and strong (I put alot of time in my health) and maybe I got some on the lucky side with appearance thanks to my parents (no model but u know, just fine). + I've joined group therapy on 18 yrs old for one and a half year, been in cognitive therapy since my 21st and still going sometimes and have been reading about philosophy, psychology for years and thought alot about a mentality of 'overcoming' and practicing this alot too in for example Boxing. As more medicine for the mind I sometimes make poems, play guitar and sing or make raps (been a while tbh), meditate, work out more, have a healthy routine and habits, try to do enough new things and take risks (as in Love and also career or vacations alone etc).. I feel like I understand myself and my world alot better than before and that I could do something really cool with these insights.
To understand my question but honestly also because I am weirdly eager to share my story, here's a small part of my history; My parents got divorced at age 5 or 6 because my mother joined a sect (like Amish but modernized) and the church said she had to, against my fathers' wishes. It was a horrible divorce, where suddenly my dad was gone, they regularly got in screaming fights with my mom wishing him dead etc, slamming doors (my dad broke into the house at least once) arguing over the relationship and us, while we didn't really understood why and cried ofcourse. Later on when things sort of settled down I saw my dad weekend on weekend off and until shortly I told myself everything was fine from that time on; it would be too much to tell, but I am now sure (beside every period also has some good things ofc) I have been emotionally neglected, traumatically manipulated by my mom (examples: literally years later when I felt sad my dad was gone while looking at old pictures where she cut him out, she said things like it was the demon in my room making me feel that way and she literally commanded/screamed it back to hell, I was frightened to death and my little sister cried once; my mother also observed and controlled us sometimes obsessively checking our stuff in search of where the devil could hide & would throw it away, and manipulate choices, what is not allowed to do or even think.. everything) and I lived an extremely sad, depressing, insecure and self-blaming youth. If I'd understood what really was going on with my mom and my family, I probably would have killed myself. Lucky me I guess she forced me to become a bit better at lying, and so too to myself. Hahah you thought that was all didn't yah? Hell no, here comes part two; at 15 yrs old I got kicked out of (that side of) the family which meant losing my mother, my siblings I grew up with, my best friend cousin and a whole network of friends because I had to move to my father in another city too far away. I had to walk away from home (my mom) because I felt very unsafe apparently, I wasn't welcome anymore after that. She also didn't respond to my texts, or said I could come and then cancel, and send not even a message from the first birthday since on. Later on I tried again but she keeps putting expectations on me and plays with my love for her. haven't seen her for 6 years now I think. But I also left the one good thing; my mothers' beliefs. I am grateful for my father to take me in, but I think now he was too traumatized by the happenings' in his life that he wasn't able to really connect with me when I moved in, we never discussed emotional parts or had a good talk the first year or more. Maybe we had later on but still, he always felt distant from me, as today I am afraid. Like he is half a ghost; He lives, but always seems unaware of half of what happens.. doing his routine over and over. You can talk but he forgets. Never said he loved me or anything, just he living his life and I mine besides his. I know he loves me, but sad it is.
So you can see I've been through some shit and still leaving out alot because it would be too long to read. I want to get to the point myself as like;
I am feeling okay lately and really are keeping my balance, feeling overall good and livin' prosperous as I actually always do. The only thing I really long still is having a connection with people. I don't know if it's me, them, or both.. I moved alot so it was hard to remain friendships, but I also think I find it hard to make friends because I feel like a strange ducky; I fear my past has changed me so much that I understand depth that my peers do not. It could be arrogance, but it must at least have some truth in it. It takes alot of energy to be around new people and since a year I have become alot more solitary, because I don't want to drink really, use drugs or stay up at night. I live a peaceful life reading, working out, pursue a nice career and sum good meditation (and tea) sessions. And try to keep a few good friendships going, which are going very well. But I haven't been in a relationship for 6 years and now I feel like I am ready (a healthy one this time I promise), only the women around me I feel like they are not (ghosting, are most interested in themselves, looking for checking their grocerylist, communicate intensely vague). I've had quite some experience with women and don't struggle to get dates, but I really find it hard to find real connection/understanding. I got on a new datingapp where you go on date when you match without chatting, sounds great not? Only with the first 3 matches they postponed the date already 6 times, two doubles, mostly same day/few hours before. And with horrible reason and effort after really. I also find the girls I have approached in real life and dated seem occupied, and some of those things i just listed. Generally very cold women here in Holland, is my experience (but there are always exceptions on ones' rules ofcourse);
''Has this world changed its' moral value, or is it I?''
.. So I wonder; do I need to change myself, or my environment? Do I maybe have a lack of connection what makes me feel like I lack connection, or am I still missing something internally? Or both? And do I need to be more patient while feeling a little righteous lack-of?
If you want to ask, share or give your worldview of anything please do so! I am here to learn, not to know it better.
Huge propz to dr K, thanks for the ton of knowledge I already learned from you for free and thanks for this reddit page!
thanks for reading!
​
side question: It could be obvious but is my history a normal one? or is it a bit different from the usual? I wouldn't know really, I like to see myself as normal
​
TL;DR: Life is going great, Life wás hell & felt like sharing, question; is there a chance for real love?
​
​

Hi all (and who knows/I hope dr K),
Prepare to read!! But if you don't want to, get the TLDR at the bottom; I am very uncommon with Reddit so forgive me any mistakes!
I've been strugglin' along in life for a while now (am 26 years old) and even though I've been doubling down on dr K's videos last 6 months or so, it's been 10 years I've been working very hard on myself (sometimes really really obsessively). As following is how great my life is going;
I just got hired for a new job (System Engineer in IT), got a good base (got a small but nice apartment with garden, money, stuff, a cute cat) and I am very healthy and strong (I put alot of time in my health) and maybe I got some on the lucky side with appearance thanks to my parents (no model but u know, just fine). + I've joined group therapy on 18 yrs old for one and a half year, been in cognitive therapy since my 21st and still going sometimes and have been reading about philosophy, psychology for years and thought alot about a mentality of 'overcoming' and practicing this alot too in for example Boxing. As more medicine for the mind I sometimes make poems, play guitar and sing or make raps (been a while tbh), meditate, work out more, have a healthy routine and habits, try to do enough new things and take risks (as in Love and also career or vacations alone etc).. I feel like I understand myself and my world alot better than before and that I could do something really cool with these insights.
To understand my question but honestly also because I am weirdly eager to share my story, here's a small part of my history; My parents got divorced at age 5 or 6 because my mother joined a sect (like Amish but modernized) and the church said she had to, against my fathers' wishes. It was a horrible divorce, where suddenly my dad was gone, they regularly got in screaming fights with my mom wishing him dead etc, slamming doors (my dad broke into the house at least once) arguing over the relationship and us, while we didn't really understood why and cried ofcourse. Later on when things sort of settled down I saw my dad weekend on weekend off and until shortly I told myself everything was fine from that time on; it would be too much to tell, but I am now sure (beside every period also has some good things ofc) I have been emotionally neglected, traumatically manipulated by my mom (examples: literally years later when I felt sad my dad was gone while looking at old pictures where she cut him out, she said things like it was the demon in my room making me feel that way and she literally commanded/screamed it back to hell, I was frightened to death and my little sister cried once; my mother also observed and controlled us sometimes obsessively checking our stuff in search of where the devil could hide & would throw it away, and manipulate choices, what is not allowed to do or even think.. everything) and I lived an extremely sad, depressing, insecure and self-blaming youth. If I'd understood what really was going on with my mom and my family, I probably would have killed myself. Lucky me I guess she forced me to become a bit better at lying, and so too to myself. Hahah you thought that was all didn't yah? Hell no, here comes part two; at 15 yrs old I got kicked out of (that side of) the family which meant losing my mother, my siblings I grew up with, my best friend cousin and a whole network of friends because I had to move to my father in another city too far away. I had to walk away from home (my mom) because I felt very unsafe apparently, I wasn't welcome anymore after that. She also didn't respond to my texts, or said I could come and then cancel, and send not even a message from the first birthday since on. Later on I tried again but she keeps putting expectations on me and plays with my love for her. haven't seen her for 6 years now I think. But I also left the one good thing; my mothers' beliefs. I am grateful for my father to take me in, but I think now he was too traumatized by the happenings' in his life that he wasn't able to really connect with me when I moved in, we never discussed emotional parts or had a good talk the first year or more. Maybe we had later on but still, he always felt distant from me, as today I am afraid. Like he is half a ghost; He lives, but always seems unaware of half of what happens.. doing his routine over and over. You can talk but he forgets. Never said he loved me or anything, just he living his life and I mine besides his. I know he loves me, but sad it is.
So you can see I've been through some shit and still leaving out alot because it would be too long to read. I want to get to the point myself as like;
I am feeling okay lately and really are keeping my balance, feeling overall good and livin' prosperous as I actually always do. The only thing I really long still is having a connection with people. I don't know if it's me, them, or both.. I moved alot so it was hard to remain friendships, but I also think I find it hard to make friends because I feel like a strange ducky; I fear my past has changed me so much that I understand depth that my peers do not. It could be arrogance, but it must at least have some truth in it. It takes alot of energy to be around new people and since a year I have become alot more solitary, because I don't want to drink really, use drugs or stay up at night. I live a peaceful life reading, working out, pursue a nice career and sum good meditation (and tea) sessions. And try to keep a few good friendships going, which are going very well. But I haven't been in a relationship for 6 years and now I feel like I am ready (a healthy one this time I promise), only the women around me I feel like they are not (ghosting, are most interested in themselves, looking for checking their grocerylist, communicate intensely vague). I've had quite some experience with women and don't struggle to get dates, but I really find it hard to find real connection/understanding. I got on a new datingapp where you go on date when you match without chatting, sounds great not? Only with the first 3 matches they postponed the date already 6 times, two doubles, mostly same day/few hours before. And with horrible reason and effort after really. I also find the girls I have approached in real life and dated seem occupied, and some of those things i just listed. Generally very cold women here in Holland, is my experience (but there are always exceptions on ones' rules ofcourse);
''Has this world changed its' moral value, or is it I?''
.. So I wonder; do I need to change myself, or my environment? Do I maybe have a lack of connection what makes me feel like I lack connection, or am I still missing something internally? Or both? And do I need to be more patient while feeling a little righteous lack-of?
If you want to ask, share or give your worldview of anything please do so! I am here to learn, not to know it better.
Huge propz to dr K, thanks for the ton of knowledge I already learned from you for free and thanks for this reddit page!
thanks for reading!
​
side question: It could be obvious but is my history a normal one? or is it a bit different from the usual? I wouldn't know really, I like to see myself as normal
​
TL;DR: Life is going great, Life wás hell & felt like sharing, question; is there a chance for real love?
​
​

Hey all, I am currently using the Soundcore Space One that I got for my birthday 5 months ago, but feel like the detail in music isn't that good as for example in the Sony ULT Wear that I bought for my dad. So the question is, what would you recommend? Sony ULT Wear or the WH-1000XM4?